some questions…? but not really any answers…

–maybe our context is different. maybe it is that when i think of sex workers, i think of women who have few choices, and sex work allows them a modicum of freedom that they wouldnt otherwise have. obviously this isnt all sex workers. just most of the ones ive known personally.

–i dont mind being told that i am working for the system. i am a us citizen. writing on a computer powered by the israeli financed intel. wearing clothes made by young women sweatshop workers in china. my child recognizes mickey mouse, barney, and some egyptian brand name, krombo, before she can recognize the difference between lavendar and mauve. i live as a us citizen in egypt, egypt that supports israel’s destruction of palestine while being the number two recipient of us aid. funny thing is that folks almost never call me out on that shit on the internet. here, its all about the words you use. not the actions that you make. radical feminsim, choice feminism, your feminism, my life, whatever.

–so when it comes to patriarchy. and sex work. and kink. and whatever else. bring the whole cadre of feminist analysis to the work, act, life. sex work as empowering…sometimes. sex work as demeaning…sometimes. sex work as the new great weapon against the patriarchy…im sorry…but who said that? i dont know anyone personally who got into sex work as a great feminist break through the patriarchial strangle hold. im sure they exist. but, i mean i believe in fairies too.

–just because patriarchy requires it, doesnt make it privileged. that much i know. women who are arrogant about their status of ‘mother’ are arrogant women. if they werent a mother theyd be arrogant about something else. and hell, i have so so so had unattached women tell me that i was being immoral as well as selling out to the patriarchy because i got pregnant and decided to carry the babe to term.

cause lets look at the shit that is required by patriarchy: sex work, motherhood, female slavery. performing the duties that are required by patriarchy does not make one privileged. certainly not necessarily more privileged (privileged in the sense of having more access to power) than women who do not perform certain required duties. normally this is because if women do not perform one set of duties, they will opt to perform another set of required duties. yep, that is choice feminism. woohoo!

–so if we are swimming in patriarchy. and we are all basically performing one set of patriarchial mandated duties or another set, then what is the way out? to freedom? im not claiming that anyone owes me an answer. ive got some hints of what an answer might be. but if porn disappeared tomorrow. then im pretty sure that patriarchy would find something else self-serving to fill the gap. does that make me a pessimist?

–so some women think that we can take over patriarchial institutions. take over the reigns and make it into something that serves us. maybe. its a reformist move. but hell. it might be a bit fun to try. and i have never thought it was a good idea for any movement or ideology or social viewpoint to disparage ‘fun’. shit i dont want your revolution if i cant dance in it.

–some women think that we can build something new. outside of patriarchy. that we have the power through our visions, our imaginations, our voices, our art to create a new world. a new world a different world is possible. sounds like fun, i love making something new.

–it seems to me to be pretty oppressive to tell women that because we are socialized under patriarchy that we cannot know what within ourselves is and is not patriarchial thought, vision, practice? is there ever a point that we can know? maybe there is not a point that some women can know, but we can say for all women? that there is no woman who can dream, or envision, or feel, or imagine, or create a world for a second, for an afternoon, that is not embued with patriarchy? and maybe that moment happens in a bedroom or a hotel room? and maybe that moment happens with a whip in her hand or one on her back? can we really speak for every woman’s psyche?

and just declare that those women who do not think that the actions and pleasures that they take even though in some ways they may concur with patriarchy’s vision of women while in the cage of the fathers’ fathers’ fathers are not liberatory?